The Rules, by Starscream
by Vivienne Grainger
Summary: Starscream, an Autobot?  How the Pit did that happen?  Non-con warning!
1. Chapter 1

If you liked "Once and Future Friend," you may wish to approach this fic with extreme caution (and probably a large club). This is what happens when a writer is viciously bitten, as in "body dangling from the bite wound and jaws still working," by a plot bunny that has apparently been watching porn. Still funny in parts, though.

Not mine, not for profit.

* * *

Sunstreaker and Sideswipe brought him in between them, each of them twisting an arm up behind him: broken-winged, leaking energon, and wounded in a number of places, Starscream was still snarling and kicking, occasionally impacting one or the other of the twins' shins, and doing his (slightly mangled) very best to fight.

"Well, well," said Ratchet, turning from the last of the Autobot casualties to face the captive, "what have we here?"

Starscream responded with a string of Cybertronian curses that had all four Autobots blinking and taking notes. At the end of the diatribe, Ratchet stared at the Decepticon for just a moment too long, and then smiled. "Tell you what, boys," he said to Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, "let's use this berth over here. You can go," he said to the other Autobot. "Light duty for three orn."

Ratchet led the way to a separate room with a locking door. "Put him on the berth, face-down," he said. "I want a look at that wing first." He shut the door behind them.

The brothers did as they were told, although this was not without difficulty. They were not cruel mechs, and did not wish to further injure the Seeker's damaged wing; he, on the other hand, wished to continue fighting.

Once the flier was down, Ratchet lowered a brace and set it in place across the back of Starscream's helm, holding his head chin-down, then used a set of magnetic handcuffs to lock the Seeker's wrists to the table. After that he pulled the rivet gun down and fastened each knee and ankle to the surface as well, Starscream making good on the promise of his name the while.

Last, the medic made eye contact first with the yellow, then with the red, mech, both of whom were gaping at him in surprise, and jerked his head back at the door. He couldn't be heard over the din as the Seeker fought to free himself.

Ratchet turned the lights off in the room and shut the door behind him, which cut off Starscream's voice like a hot knife through butter. "You are not to speak to any other Autobot except Prowl about Starscream's presence on the _Ark_. Got it?"

"Sir," said Sideswipe. When Ratchet went senior-officer all over your aft, it was what you said to him, and it was Pit-spawned well what you did, too, unless you wanted to find yourself reformatted into a restaurant deep-fryer.

"Now, who saw you bring him in?"

"Bluestreak. He was standing guard. I think Fireflight, too, he's on monitor duty right now," Sideswipe said.

"The mech you just cut loose," Sunstreaker added, "and anyone else in here who's conscious."

"Good point. If that poisonous 'con broke your plating anywhere, I want to know about it within an orn. Comm me. Right now, though, you will report to Prowl. _Right _now. Clear?"

"Sir, yes sir," they said together, and got the Pit out of med bay.

The door had barely swung to behind the pair before Ratchet commed Prowl.

_Prowl? I have Starscream restrained in the med bay._

Prowl sighed. _I'll tell Optimus, and begin negotiation with the 'cons._

_No. Don't. He's been a pain in our afts for decades. Let's put an end to that._

_Kill him?_ Prowl sounded shocked.

_Not at all. Let's just – rewrite the rules. I have a very specific plan in mind. Sides and Sunny are reporting to you; confine them to quarters, and relieve Skyfire and Silverbolt of whatever they're doing and confine them to Skyfire's quarters as well. If I'm wrong about something, those last two won't be out of action for long. Fireflight - well, just confine all of the Aerialbots to quarters, and blank their comms. Confine a mech named Default to his quarters too, and Bluestreak as well. You and I should have a talk in here._

_I can't get free for three joor._

_Three joor? Fine. I should be through with the fragger medically by then. Can you do that for me, and not ask why?_

_Certainly. Should I?_

_Don't ask me that either. See you in the secured repair berth room, okay?_

_And I am not telling Optimus about this because?_

_Because he will feel compelled to tell us not to do it. Whereas if we can present him with a done deal, he won't have to. And it will, I promise you it will, help the cause._

_Ratchet - _

_Prowl. Do what I ask. Then hear me out._

_You frighten me, Ratchet._

_I should. Ratchet out._

* * *

Ratchet checked over his in-bay patients, and summoned First Aid from his recharge. "I need you in here to keep watch for a while. Don't ask, okay? Best if you don't know. Take scans of everyone in here, and send me a report of who was conscious at 67:24:16 this orn."

First Aid, new to medicking, cast a wild optic in his senior's direction, said merely, "Okay." He moved off, reading each patient's monitors.

He could have accessed them all right where he stood, but he knew his Ratchet.

His Ratchet slapped a sound masker to the outside the isolation berth, and entered the room, turning on the lights.

Starscream, who had stopped cursing and struggling, blinked in the sudden illumination. "What do you want with me, fragger?" he snarled.

Ratchet did not bother to reply, merely began addressing himself to the controls of a small monitor which Starscream was facing. He also opened a neck port, to Starscream's vocal objections, and left his optic shutters stuck open. He then set the console below the monitor to record Starscream's reactions, and ran a program.

When that finished, to Ratchet's utter lack of surprise over the results, the medic focused his attention on the Seeker's damaged wing. He was not particularly gentle, and he saw no clear reason to utilize any painkillers, as this was, after all, a 'con; Starscream could not be said to enjoy the repair work.

When the screams got too loud, Ratchet gagged his patient.

He was just attaching the last of a series of particularly unpleasant bracing devices to the fractured wing when the door opened, and Prowl appeared.

"So it's true," the 2IC said. "How the mighty have fallen."

Ratchet finished the work on the Seeker's wing, opened a neck port, and made two adjustments. Starscream's optics snapped shut and locked that way.

"Well, Prowl," the medic said, washing his hands in the room's sanitation station, "we have here a unique opportunity to turn a 'con of some strategic value."

The other blinked at him. "Turn Starscream? How likely is that? And should we be concerned about discussing this in his presence?"

Ratchet shook his head, that strange human gesture of "no." "His visual and audio receptors are shut off. ―I've just run a program I wrote some time back against the possibility that we would have any Decepticon of particular value in here. It showed him pictures of every Autobot, and monitored optic-dilation response. I know exactly who on base can get to him." He turned to the little monitor, and displayed the results of the program: four Autobot faces.

"Those two are convenient," Prowl said, looking at the top pair. "The other two aren't exactly unexpected, either."

"No. That," the medic said to Prowl, "is why I isolated them. These four together, if we can force-bond Starscream to them, can turn him for us."

"A sparkbond, and a trine bond," Prowl said, his eyes distant.

"That's the plan," Ratchet said cheerfully. "One or the other, he might slip. But he can't evade both."

"But, Ratchet, a force-bond? Optimus will detest this from beginning to end. 'It is the right of all sentient beings to be free,'" Prowl said, quoting their leader.

"Indeed he will, and from beginning to end, just as you say," Ratchet said, optics bright. "So best to present him with two established bonds and a tamed Seeker, don't you think?"

"He'll have my spark on a pike," Prowl said. "Yours too."

Ratchet grinned. "Wanna bet?"

Prowl sighed. "Tell me what you need, and I'll assign these four to you for a – decaorn?"

"Two, one for each bond," Ratchet said, slapping Starscream on the uninjured wing, which made the Seeker jump. "This is a stubborn mech. But if I can't make the little fragger into an Autobot in two decaorn, I'll give Optimus my spark myself, so that you can keep yours."

Prowl smiled. "I'll go work on some plausible deniability. You're going to be for the high jump all by yourself."

"Won't be the first time I have taken that chance," Ratchet said, entirely too cheerfully, and offlined Starscream.

When Prowl shut the door behind him, the medic began to assemble the chemicals he would need to dissolve a trine bond. Nearly anything can be undone if you get the chemistry right, and over the vorn, Ratchet had made it his business to know how to get the chemistry right.

When it came to rules and Starscream, best to resign yourself to rewriting them, he thought, adding the last chemical to the mix.


	2. Chapter 2

Two orn later, Prowl escorted the twins major to Ratchet's office, locked the door behind them, and sat down on Ratchet's side of the desk.

"You two," Ratchet said, "are about to get a challenge, and a bondmate."

Sunsteaker and Sideswipe blinked at him, then at each other. "No!" they said together.

"Oh yes. You will now sit down, shut up, and listen to me explain the procedure," the medic said cheerfully.

"Or?" said Sideswipe.

"'Or'? There is no 'or.' There is 'listen,' and there is 'I will reformat you into stand mixers and sell you to the humans' …. there also might be 'I will take out your transformation cogs while you're in alt-mode because we'd get more for you that way'. Gentlemechs, I tell you, there is no 'or.'"

Glumly, they stared at him, sat down, shut up, and prepared to listen.

* * *

"So," said Sidewipe, the penny finally dropping, "with the gadget, the bond will be his … not ours."

Sunstreaker rolled his optics. His brother was not the fastest 'bot on the uptake, at least for some things. He'd figured that out about the time Ratchet was going on about which tools to use where.

"If you do it right," Ratchet said. "Here." He handed the two mechs data chips. "You do it wrong, and you will be bonded to Starscream for the rest of your miserable existences as stand mixers. If you can get him to bond at all; I've already told you why you might not be able to."

The twins glanced at each other. Ratchet did not need to be a telepath to know that they were not, now, going to fail at this.

"The tool use on this too?" said Sunny, inserting the datachip into his ulnar port.

"It's all there, mechs," Ratchet said, grinning. "All of it." This was going better than he had hoped. "He'll be out of the critical recovery period this time tomorrow, and ready for some fun. Prepare yourselves to rewrite the rules."

What scared the twins most about this little chat with Ratchet was that at the end of it, Prowl, _Prowl_, gave them a most unnerving grin.

Starscream's repairs proceeded apace; the bond dissolution, being chemical, had not torn the large chunks out of his spark chamber which Ratchet had feared any other procedure might. The wing was mending well; wings, because of their nerve supply, also had a good energon supply, and mended quickly. By the time the twins got through with him, he should be fully recovered, Ratchet thought. If, at that point, he could walk.

He held one of the timed nerve-stimulators up to the light, and smiled at it: he had programmed it specifically to overcharge a Seeker. Yes indeed, unless Sideswipe was much more sentimental than he, Ratchet, gave the mech credit for, Starscream would be bonded to two mechs who didn't care much for him.

It was cruel, but then the same could be said of Starscream.

As for the trine bond, well, those two would have to take their chances. But if the twins did their work well, the Seeker would be unable to resist that bond as well.

When the time came, Ratchet prepared the Seeker carefully.

Sunstreaker smiled at the medic when he arrived in their quarters. "Look what the Vernal Equinox Mech brought us," he said to his brother.

* * *

Starscream onlined.

Had that fragger Ratchet offlined his optics, and forgotten to online them again? And why the Pit was he completely unable to move?

What the Pit is this? he wanted to ask, but found that his vocalizer had been disconnected.

Vocalizer disconnected, optics shuttered, and, he realized, his audio receptors shut down as well.

Then when a hand ran from his chest to his knee, he realized with a shock that not only all of his weapons and armor had been removed, and his transformation cog disabled, which he expected, but all of his plating was gone as well.

_All_ of his plating.

Autobots and Decepticons alike spend their lives naked, except for their plating.

Plating protects. Plating removed leaves sensitive nerve endings open to the air, or the touch of others, or - Primus, was that a glossa? - sensation, wanted or otherwise, of any Pit-spawned kind indeed.

Ratchet had entrusted to the twins all of his varied neurological testing tools. In the datachip, he gave them quite a quantity of information about what worked best in which areas. He had not included his sources, i.e., how he knew this. Medical knowledge, after all, only extends so far; and some of what Ratchet shared had _clearly_ not been medically derived.

Some of the tools weren't either. He didn't tell them that; let 'em rewrite the rules on their own.

The twins would let the medic keep his secrets, at least for a time. Right now, they had another plaything.

Stroked, tickled, pinched, licked, occasionally bitten by, he realized with a shock, _two_ mechs: Starscream fell fast into his first overcharge.

Sunstreaker sat back on his heels and looked at his brother. "That was no fun," he said. "Ratchet said he'd be hard to overcharge, and he's not."

Sideswipe grinned. "Yeah, but guess what happens if he's not, and we keep working like we have been. Plus, some of the sensors will still be active."

This proved true. Some few were, in fact, still pulsing when second overcharge proved to be about half the time in arriving as the first, but twice as strong. The twins were learning their Starscream.

With the fifth overcharge, they began introducing other things. Pain, heat, cold: toothed wheels run over bare struts.

_Primus, Primus, Primus, this is going to kill me! Stop! Stop! Aaaaaah!_

And then he offlined right in the middle of the festivities.

When he woke, he felt some motion come back into his head and neck. Then one of his captors kissed him gently, and pulled open his spark casing -

No, Primus, _no!_

But having made him achingly, humiliatingly sensitive, vulnerable in ways unacceptable to any Decepticon … they did not exploit him.

Yet. He couldn't see them grinning at one another.

One of them gently picked him up, walked a short distance with him, the passage of air over his spark chamber unsettling, and laid him on a berth. A _soft_ berth. What the frag were these two doing?

They were, in fact, retiring for the night. With Starscream available to them, this had some special fillips.

Sideswipe was not a cruel mech. Nor was Sunstreaker, unless much provoked (although on some mornings, all that took was "Hello"). They gave Starscream his ration of energon, if through injection because he couldn't swallow; the injection also contained enough cable relaxant to keep the Seeker turned into a puddle.

The first relaxant was wearing off. This new one was a drug which required an antagonist. It would stay active in Starscream's energon lines until neutralized.

Freed, Starscream flopped strutlessly over onto his face. Chuckling, which he could _feel_ through their hands on him, they moved him into a position in which he wouldn't smother.

He couldn't even _twitch_. By Primus, Starscream raged within himself, the next time he flew against the Autodolts, he was going to personally offline Ratchet! _Personally_! With as much prejudice as he could muster!

They left him alone for a moment, and consulted their information. Rules were there for the rewriting.

"I think we should mix the two," Sunstreaker said.

"Use one stimulator with a two-hour setting, and one with a three-hour setting? Why?"

"Think about it, Sides. They're activated at the same time, and that's the first overcharge. Two hours later, one goes off, and then an hour after that the other goes off. An hour after that, the two-hour one goes off again. Then there's a two-hour gap, and then they both go off again. He'll think it's an irregular schedule, at least for a while."

Sideswipe grinned at his twin. "We won't get much sleep. Any of us."

Sunstreaker shrugged. "And your point is? This is our duty for the next decaorn. We can sleep when we want. As for cuddles over there, sleep's the least of his worries."

"Well then. Let's get with the program."

Part one of the program involved positioning Starscream very, very carefully, and propping him into place with soft pillows. His body, when they finished, was in neither an uncomfortable nor a vulnerable position.

He was beginning to be a bit frightened by all of this – kindness. Beatings, he could take; even beatings to the point of critical injury were only beatings, and the injuries healed. Kindness scared the exhaust right out of him, because his spark was beginning to respond to it.

The twins flipped for choice. Sides won, chose the two-hour timer, and Sunny chose his favorite port.

"Always knew you were like that," Sides said.

"Of course you did. What part of 'spark-split' do you not understand?"

They placed the timers, activated them, and watched the results. Starscream would have lived up to his name, if he could.

"Wow," Sides said eventually. "I had no idea overcharge would play out like _that, _without cable contractions."

Sunstreaker grinned his feral grin. "Neither did I. And now we get to share."

Starscream, panting, exhausted, and thoroughly humiliated by his inability to control his own body, was suddenly enveloped in warm plating.

They carefully arranged him to cuddle between them. He raged inside his head, unable to resist or tell them what he thought of it, or them. Then one of them _locked energy ports with him._

Then the other one did, using the 'con's minor port, but locking it to his own major port.

Shocked, Starscream felt cleaning fluid pool in his optics, which made him angrier still.

But, having made him supremely vulnerable to themselves, they did nothing except rearrange him a bit, his top arm and leg over the one in front of him, the arm of the other over him.

They did not move, they did not channel energy, and while they might have enveloped him in their energy fields, they not pry into his. From the vibrations the smaller Seeker could feel in their torsos, they spoke to one another, but they did nothing more.

Starscream could also feel the spark of the one in front of him. Whether the casing was open or not, that he could not tell.

The mech made no effort to cram his spark next to Starscream's, though, seemed merely to offline with a huff through his exhaust the Seeker felt across his vulnerable spark.


	3. Chapter 3

Starscream had almost calmed himself enough to go from "white-hot incandescent rage" to "normal snideness" when the two-hour timer went off.

"Hey, baby," Sideswipe murmured, and moved just close enough to put his spark, though still hidden, into communion with Starscream's.

Ratchet's timed device was programmed to excite Starscream's nerves. All of them, and Seekers have more than other body types. With Sideswipe's nervous system also locked to it, the experience was shared.

Sideswipe was also, through the twin bond, locked to Sunstreaker, who was physically locked to Starscream as well.

The twins opened the bond link between themselves, and Starscream, the focal point of their excitement, never had a chance. Overcharge swept him away into unconsciousness before he could keep his distance from Sideswipe's spark.

Being chemically rendered rag-limp considerably aided this process, although Starscream had no way to know that.

"Want to do that again, just you and me, still linked to him?" the red twin said. "This time I'll open my spark chamber. The bond'll be half-formed by the time he wakes up again."

"Yeah. This one's too easy. I want to teach him to slow down."

"We'll have time. If you still want to, after."

"I think so. He's awfully pretty, even stripped like this." Sunstreaker widened the bond channel, and knocked Sideswipe's optics crossed.

* * *

Dreams. He'd had horrible dreams. A cliff was about to fall on him, and he couldn't take wing, couldn't get away. And you couldn't fight a falling cliff.

Then the three-hour timer went off, and Starscream woke from his hellish dream to his living nightmare.

And this time, _this time_, the one in front of him pulled him close, so close that their spark-cages touched … no dear Primus, no, please no … but it wasn't … it wasn't like when Megatron did that to him cold, no foreplay, nothing. This time his spark reached out, pleased, he would have sworn, to welcome an old friend …

In the rush of sensation, Starscream knew now who his torturers were.

He knew now he was bonded to Sideswipe.

Spark-bonded to an Autobot. An Autobot who was a spark-shared twin.

Oh, he was so screwed. In every sense, he was so very screwed.

Darkness reached for him, and he welcomed it.

The rule about Starscream always being the one in charge? Rewritten.

* * *

"You want to swap sides, once the cycle's complete? We aren't going to need a decaorn."

"You think you'll be done in two more?"

"Primus, yes," Sideswipe said. "It's done now. The next two are just to get him to calm down a bit."

Sunstreaker shrugged. "Fine by me." He unsubspaced a data pad. "I'm going to read. We've only got an hour."

And Starscream rewrote another rule: you may not do anything but 'face with Starscream, if you are 'facing with Starscream.

* * *

Starscream was swept from sleep, to pleasure, to communion, and back to unconsciousness so swiftly that all he remembered was his bondmate's gentle digits stroking his face, and the softest kiss ever given him planted on his lips.

"He's exhausted," Sideswipe said, fingers trailing down the limp flyer's chest.

"Ratchet told us that would help."

"Yeah, but … "

Sunny shrugged. "I've begun to care about the little glitch too. Maybe we should go for just one complete cycle tonight, let him sleep, and get Ratchet in here to look at him."

"Yeah," Sideswipe said, his optics concerned.

* * *

Both of the twins screamed when the timers activated simultaneously. Starscream would have too, had his vocalizer been connected.

Afterward, they lay in a tangle of contentment with one another. Sideswipe kissed Starscream gently, and thought he felt the ghost of response through the bond. Sunstreaker stroked a naked arm softly, and while this pleased Starscream, he lacked any way to show it.

The 'con Seeker managed to stay conscious, but slipped into recharge shortly after realizing that his anger and humiliation had vanished into being cherished. He was bonded, and that was enough, enough for a spark starved for millennia of real affection.

Primus take it all, anyway. He could never go back to the _Nemesis_ now.

Rule #2, "Starscream will always be a 'con," rewritten.

* * *

Ratchet used a tiny instrument to collect a drop of energon from the line closest to Starscream's spark-chamber.

"I'm pleased you two aren't keeping him restrained," he said.

"Not necessary, with that wonder-drug you gave him."

Sunstreaker was maintaining his usual glower, but Ratchet, having taking samples from both twins as well, was not fooled. "No. In a couple of days Wheeljack will have the inertial cuffs ready, and we won't need other restraints." The medic tilted the tiny thing up to the light to read its results. "Well, congratulations," he said. "One full spark-bond, established." He cast a penetrating glance at Sideswipe, and smirked. "When you warrior-types fall, you fall pretty hard, pretty fast. And you don't fall out. I'd kinda hoped you wouldn't bond to him, but it's mutual, so you're probably safe."

"How long do you think it will take for me?" Sunstreaker said.

"You're why I asked for a decaorn," Ratchet said, cutting his eyes to the yellow mech. "All of your efforts can be focused on his bond to Sunny, now, but if I know you" - back to Sideswipe - "and I do, that'll be hard for you. Just do your best. If you need some time with the mech, take it." He smiled as he put the instrument into its self-cleaning cycle, then subspaced it. "Don't break your new toy," he said to them both, and left.

The rule about not toying with Starscream? Not so much rewritten as irretrievably fractured.

* * *

Sideswipe occupied himself with planning a new and particularly complex practical joke, this one to be played on the Aerialbots, while Sunny occupied himself with Starscream. He needed, he told his brother, to play catch-up.

Anyone who knew Sunstreaker from encounters on the battlefield, and quite a few who knew him only from encounters aboard the _Ark_, would have been startled to know that the yellow twin was in fact the more considerate of the two as a lover.

Starscream was finding this out now. Reduced as he was to acceptance, the sense of touch, and the ability inherent in all Cybertronians to perceive another's energy field, the Seeker could have told anyone who asked quite a lot about the yellow twin; more, in fact, than he could of the red.

Sunstreaker lay with his captive on the sofa (a useful human invention) in their quarters. That is, he leaned back against cushions on one end, stretched out along the furniture, and draped Starscream over himself like a very odd throw, while he held the same datapad in one hand.

Starscream was not being groped, fondled, forced into overcharge, or manipulated in any way. He _was_ gently held against another's plating, because without that support he would have slid to the floor like an overturned bowl of cooked spaghetti, but otherwise he was left free to enjoy the experience, or resent it if he liked.

This was new for Starscream. 'Cons did not usually have the luxury of simple time together; their off-hours were likely to be disrupted by abuse from Megatron, so their amorous encounters tended to have a flavor of clank-clench-thank-you-mech about them. Get it over with, shed the vulnerability, be able to stand up to the Boss. Because you had to, or he'd kill you.

New experience tends to modify existing programming. With someone who was as rigidly fond of himself as Starscream, this was not a painless process.

_But I can't ... But he's not …. But it's not _like_ this … But it is … But I have to … _

The feel through Sunny's field was, _No, you don't. You don't have to do anything. You are enough, just as you are._

Starscream was undone, and would have wailed if it were possible for him to do so. Sunny smiled, subspaced the datapad, and took him to the berth.

He arranged Starscream so that he wouldn't smother, and said to Sideswipe, "You ready? He's about toast."

"Sure," said Sideswipe, subspaced what he was doing, and brought the timers with him.

Rule #1 was now in even tinier little pieces.

* * *

"Well, well," Ratchet said, looking at the samples. "Two bonds in less than two orn. I wouldn't have thought it possible. Congratulations, you two."

Sideswipe grinned. Sunstreaker simply looked less sullen than usual, said, "Can we give him the antidote now?"

"Not yet. He has an appointment with Skyfire and Silverbolt."

"We have to give him up?"

"For a little while. We'll have to double-bond him, or we won't keep him."

"Ah," Sideswipe said, his spark contracting a bit at the thought of having to share a bondmate.

Sunstreaker simply scowled.

"Will you two _back off_? It's a Seeker trine bond. Last time I looked, only one of you can fly, and neither of you's a Seeker."

They both scowled at that. Ratchet offlined the Seeker, boxed him, and subspaced the box. End of conversation.


	4. Chapter 4

"My Primus," said Skyfire. "He's naked."

He was referring to Starscream's lack of plating. Slight and small without his plating or armor, the Seeker was so tiny that Skyfire was afraid he'd crush him.

"Yes, he is. I'm still in the planning stages of a flight restraint with 'Jack, so you can go as slowly with him as you need to. It won't be ready in less than two days, and that means no mating flight before that." Ratchet finished unloading Starscream, and faced the other mechs, proffering them a separate set of data chips.

Ratchet, not himself a Seeker, could only dimly understand the trine bond. He'd read as much as he could, talked to as many Seekers as possible, back on Cybertron. It still wasn't enough, and he knew it.

The best Seeker medics were Seekers themselves.

And neither of these fliers were Seekers. Still, they'd been doing a mating dance around one another for months now. Maybe this would get things off the ground for them … hee, pun ...

Rule rewritten: Ratchet _never_ has a sense of humor.

"This stuff," Ratchet said, holding up an injector and giving it a _thunk_ with a flicked middle finger, "is a chemical analogue of Seeker hormones. It lasts for three days. If you two don't get to him in that time, comm me, and I'll give you another dose." He put it through Skyfire's pectoral port, the scientist watching him warily.

Silverbolt looked away entirely, never very comfortable with any medical procedure.

Ratchet subspaced the two injectors. "And I will see you both for a thorough pre-flight once you get the bond established, got it?"

"Or?" said the shuttle.

Ratchet rolled his eyes. "Have you been hanging out with the Lambos? There is no 'or.' No pre-flight, no bonding flight. And I won't treat you for the withdrawal. Believe me, you'll wish you were dead."

The two of them inserted the data chips as he checked Starscream over, and onlined him. "Remember, his visual and audio have been disconnected," he said to the other two, straightening from the overlarge berth Skyfire needed.

"Oh, we'll remember," said Skyfire, optics locked on Silverbolt's.

Ratchet chuckled as the door slid shut behind him.

Skyfire was a nice mech. Tt was what everyone said about him, and it was true: smart as the Pit, and nice with it.

Silverbolt was young. Not naïve; he gave the impression of having been _sparked_ worldly-wise. But he was young.

Starscream was a Seeker, with a Seeker's passion for flying. The thing about passion was that, in Ratchet's experience, if a mech had it for anything else, it came unasked to the party when that mech 'faced another.

So: one nice, one young, and one passionate. He wouldn't give any one of the three of them a glitchmouse's chance in a smelter of coming out of this unbonded.

* * *

Primus almighty, he was with two other Seekers!

But the Autobots didn't _have_ any Seekers in their ranks!

But pheromones don't lie!

One of them was _huge_. Far bigger than he himself, and he knew he was one of the largest Seekers ever sparked. So that one couldn't be a Seeker, but he _smelled_ like a Seeker!

The other was large too. Not so big that his size would definitively disqualify him as a Seeker, but still, much bigger than Starscream, whether stripped or plated and armored.

Seekers!

Currently, the two temporary chemically-induced Seekers had the true Seeker propped up between them on a couch designed for fliers, which meant that the back was filled with cushions designed to move out of the way of wing plates, but support them. Starscream, his head pillowed on Silverbolt's shoulder, had never been so comfortable while his mind was being blown.

His bookends were holding hands across his limp body.

"But my brothers -" Silverbolt was saying.

"I like your brothers."

"They seem to like you, too. Most of them, anyway."

Skyfire smiled, and ran his big thumb across Silverbolt's knuckles. "Even the ones that won't let me near them?"

Silverbolt winced. "Yeah. Nothing much to be done about that."

"No. They'll come around in time, or they won't."

"Ours is a gestalt bond. They will, whether they want to or not."

"I've never been with anyone who was a gestalt member before."

"Get used to having the metaphorical bedroom door opened at inopportune times."

Skyfire winced in his turn.

Silverbolt grinned and changed the subject. "So this one, we can't fly with yet. That mean we've got to spark-share with him?"

"Ratchet said he's already been bonded to the twins. And the chip -"

"Didn't have any conflicting information, I know. I'd just – hoped to share that with you, alone, first."

Skyfire gave him a grin that suddenly reminded Silverbolt of just how much older than he the shuttle was. "We'll get there. We've just got to go here" - he tilted his head toward the Seeker - "first."

"And are you okay with what we're doing? I know you were friends with him, back in the day."

"A working colleague more than anything. But I truly believe that this is the best solution for him. For all of us."

Silverbolt tilted his handsome face. "Why?"

"Remember a couple of days ago, when Ratchet asked for my help?"

"Yes. You were only gone a couple of hours."

"Ratchet's not a cruel mech. Somehow, he got word to Thundercracker and Skywarp that he had neutralized the bond they shared with Starscream, and offered to do the same for them."

"And he involved you so that he wouldn't have to go alone."

"I heard what those two said about Starscream. They were glad, _glad_, that we were going to keep him. They said that Megatron would torture him to death one of these days, otherwise."

"Primus."

Skyfire's heart ached a bit at Silverbolt's shocked tone. He was so _very_ young. The shuttle smiled wistfully at his friend.

Silverbolt smiled in return. "No time like the present, I guess?"

"None at all."

Starscream had been able to feel the rumble of words said in both chests, but couldn't follow the discussion. When Skyfire picked him up, he was startled. "Whoa, little one," the shuttle said, and cradled the defenseless Seeker closer to his chest. "You're all right."

Starscream understood the gesture, if not the words.

Skyfire's berth was large enough to accommodate all three of them, and their wings.

The program was much the same as the twins', except that neither of these mechs had Sunstreaker's deviousness. Thus the mix of timers was not used, only the three-hour set of two.

Starscream had not expected, and found himself suprisingly vulnerable to, Skyfire's passion. He had known the mech for millennia, of course, but had never seen the passion below the patience. Never suspected it. Like a river of lava below a frozen lake.

Silverbolt, a child in comparison to either of the other two, had a youthful fire to him that pleased the real Seeker, and a sense of responsibility that he found … touching.

With both of them hooked to him, though, his bond to the twins was activated.

Five mechs were having sex, although only three of them were physically present. The twins, alone with one another, clung together, and Sideswipe cried afterward.

"For Primus' sake, Siders, get it together," Sunstreaker said crossly, and unsubspaced a cleaning cloth, dabbing at his brothers' tears. "You'll rust yourself."

Half the _Ark_ away, coming down off a really good-quality overcharge, Silverbolt sighed, and reached over Starscream's head to kiss Skyfire. "Lovely," he said.

Skyfire's facial panels radiated excess heat. He wasn't "lovely," and he knew that. He was oversized; not, thank Primus, clumsy, but far bigger than most of the others in the _Ark_. "You can't mean that."

"Can, and do," said Silverbolt. "Our scrawny little friend here, he's awfully good looking, but he can't hold a candle to you."

"I … don't know what to say to that."

"'Thank you' is polite."

"Er. Thank you."

"Now say it like you mean it, and not like I'd handed you a bag of egested energon."

Skyfire laughed. "Fair enough. Thank you."

Rule rewritten: Starscream is not the most beautiful mech everywhere he goes.

The two not-lovers-yet stared at one another for a moment. Then Skyfire said, "Want to stroke some wings together?"

"His, or ours?"

"We could use one hand on him, one hand on each other."

Silverbolt looked down at the smaller Seeker between them. "Poor little fragger. Even after all the trouble he's dealt us, no one should be force-bonded."

"The alternative is shooting him out of the air, or returning him to Megatron to be tortured to death."

"Ouch." Silverbolt found that Starscream's wing edge, the most sensitive part of his body, was easily available to him. "Hope this makes it better."

"If what you are doing to me with your other hand," Skyfire said calmly, "is any indication, he may have defected only to experience this."

* * *

This time Starscream didn't care that it was beyond his ability to defend his own spark chamber. Skyfire's large fingers were somehow both deft and gentle, his large presence welcoming, and there was that passion below the surface, like an eddy, like a whirlpool. It reached out to claim Starscream, and drew him down into a lake of gold, where no thought, only sensation, was possible; Silverbolt's presence was the rock to which they both clung, to keep themselves from drowning.

And beneath all of it was the wildness which is the essential nature of the Seeker. They cannot be tamed, but they may be willing to bear company to the ones by whom they are pleased.

Starscream _needed_ to bear company to these two mechs. When, later in the night, Skyfire pressed his open spark chamber to the Seeker's, Starscream's only regret was that Silverbolt's was not in simultaneous contact.

Rule fractured into tiny, tiny fragments, then rewritten: Starscream chooses his lovers, not they him.

* * *

While both of them were confined to Skyfire's quarters, and detailed, for the moment, to Starscream's seduction/defection, both Silverbolt and Skyfire had other things to claim their attention. So the Seeker was passed between them during the course of the day: to Silverbolt while Skyfire used the computer to correlate data between two past experiments, to Skyfire while Silverbolt amassed the data which he would need to accurately assess his team's performance, then transferred that data to a pad.

"By the way," the young gestalt leader said to Skyfire, who was initiating Seeker transfer by sitting on the sofa to the other side of Starscream, "you remember what I told you about open bedroom doors?"

"Yes?" the shuttle said warily.

"Our gestalt is full of the news, so to speak."

Skyfire closed his eyes. "Well, it's not exactly unexpected. I could tell you enjoyed yourself last night. They must have been - "

"Yeah. They were. Fireflight is asking when you'll do that with him."

"How is it," Skyfire said, carefully adjusting the limp Seeker to lie against his side, "that you were all sparked at the same time, but you're so much older than Fireflight?"

Silverbolt slid his arm out from behind Starscream, and stood. "Umm … the weight of command ages me?"

Skyfire laughed. "Fair enough. I suppose I'll have to decline when next I see him."

"No. I'll do that, and I'll make it clear to all of them that I won't share you. You do know I can't keep them out of the gestalt bond, even when ..."

Skyfire smiled, real amusement in his optics. "Between your brothers and our naked friend's other bondmates, I doubt that you and I will ever 'face each other _by ourselves_. That okay with you? Because I don't know what to do about it."

Silverbolt flushed bright red. "I don't either, so I guess it has to be."

* * *

Starscream slept through most of the day. He roused a bit when sufficiently jostled, which took place at Seeker-transfer, but even that was not enough to waken him fully.

It was exhausting to be a Decepticon. Membership in the red-eyed ranks meant that you could never, ever let your guard down. In the _Ark_ his guard had been forcibly taken down, something only Megatron could do in the _Nemesis_, but nothing bad, and quite a lot of pleasure, was the result.

Rule rewritten: Never let your guard down.

He had not been harmed here. Trust could be placed in these Autodolts, and no harm would result; the trust enforced on him by Ratchet's machinations was not misplaced. So Starscream slept.

The other fliers fed him before returning to their berth. Skyfire got in first.

"He's been out like a light all day," Silverbolt said, glancing down at his burden.

Skyfire shrugged. "Ratchet didn't seem worried."

"I wish ..." Silverbolt said, standing in front of Skyfire's berth with Starscream in his arms, but trailed off.

"You wish what?"

Silverbolt looked at the limp Decepticon in his arms. His _duty_.

"I wish," said the Autobots' Air Commander, "that just this once, it could be you and me together. I wish we'd done that before he showed up."

"We didn't know each other well enough at the time, and we were afraid to screw up our friendship. So now is fine. He'll be okay on the couch," Skyfire said. "Cover him up with that fabric thingy I have on the back of it, and come over here."

"But - "

"Silverbolt. Bonding to the second of two people who are themselves bonded? It can only make things better for him." Skyfire smiled at the young Air Commander. "And I know it'll make things better for us. Put him down and come here, please."


	5. Chapter 5

Silverbolt stared glumly down at his clasped hands, his legs dangling over the edge of the berth. "I can't apologize sufficiently," he said.

Skyfire, big head propped on one massive arm, the other stroking Silverbolt's wing edges, said, "You have nothing to apologize for. You weren't ready. It's not as big a deal as you're trying to make it, believe me. I still like you, I still want to do this, you just didn't know me as well as you need to for a bond to form. If anything, it's my fault for rushing things."

Silverbolt blew a long breath out. "This is very … selfless of you."

"You know better than that. I enjoyed myself quite a bit, thank you very much." Skyfire's hand kept ghosting down the edge of Silverbolt's nearest wing, and the young Air Commander caught himself leaning into the caress.

Skyfire's couple of millennia of life gave him a perspective that Silverbolt hadn't yet developed, but was currently benefiting from. Truly, the moment's disappointment wouldn't matter to Skyfire, if only he could discourage Silverbolt from taking it so seriously.

To do that, he had to hide from the younger mech how amused he was by the whole thing. So he smiled when he wanted to laugh out loud, but let a rueful fond amusement (_How could I have let that happen to you?_) for Silverbolt flood his field, so that Silverbolt would feel it too.

Starscream had wakened, though neither mech realized this, and could feel it as well – and his perception of the problem was also flawless. He said and did nothing, as at the moment he could not; but he was warm and comfortable and he made a note, before drifting back into a light recharge, that this was something he could act on. As a sort of thank-you.

His thank-you would be a rose with thorns, though. But then anyone who knew Starscream knew he was a prick.

Rule still in place: see last sentence above.

* * *

Bluestreak, the twins' downstairs neighbor, got very tired of trying to sleep through the noise of bodies knocking against their floor, commed them to no response, and went up to rap on their door.

That was an hour after it began. There was no answer; Blue reported the problem to Prowl, then Officer of the Orn, and went back to bed after turning his audios so far down that he slept through his alarm and was late for duty on the morrow.

Prowl commed the twins and got an equal lack of response. He brought a security officer to the door with him, overrode the lock, and strode in, to find the two of them still in overload, not just in overcharge, and their poor frames trying to ground out the excess energy with convulsions. He summoned Ratchet.

Who strode in, took one look, burst out laughing, and gave them both a short sharp sedative.

That grounded out the endless loop, and left them both limp and exhausted, but conscious. "What the Pit were you two doing?" Ratchet said.

"Nothing! We were asleep!" said Sunstreaker. "No, really! Both of us were in recharge!"

Ratchet flicked lights into their optics and watched the reaction: normal, or at least as normal as these two ever got: and that after allowing for a fall from recharge berth to floor. He popped their chest casings and took energon samples, and looked quite sharply at the result. "You're going to be all right," he said, and subspaced the little instrument. "Go back to sleep. No 'facing with each other for at least an orn. And yes, I _will_ know."

"What did we do?" Sideswipe said.

Ratchet didn't so much as pause on his way out. "You 'faced yourselves silly. Good night." The door thunked to behind him, and the CMO turned to Prowl, saying, "I think your officer can return to the comm room."

Prowl nodded, and the other Autobot left. Prowl himself kept pace with Ratchet; walking toward Skyfire's isolated quarters, which had been cut into the mountain due to his size, he said quietly, "It's a little more than 'facing themselves silly, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is. Seekers have an enormous capacity for overcharge; it's all their flight sensors. They – I guess you'd say they dilute the experience, so it takes a lot more to get them going. It wouldn't surprise me if we learn in time that our newest Autobot can drink Ironhide under the table." Prowl blinked. "I think Starscream gave Skyfire and Silverbolt the full experience of which he was capable, the twins got it through their bond to him, and it's probably knocked all of them except our little Decepticon friend cock-opticked. So it's my fault, more or less."

"More or less," agreed Prowl; Ratchet was not fooled by that statement, however. Prowl's own optics were bright with amusement.

"Going to report me?"

"No. I took a visual recording, but that's just to laugh at, some day when they've driven me crazy. That'll be enough."

"You may want to hit 'Record' again when we get inside," Ratchet said outside Skyfire's door.

* * *

Skyfire's quarters were disappointing in terms of sources of humor, however. Skyfire and Silverbolt were out cold, still port-linked to Starscream, who, between them, was silently giggling.

Ratchet actually _smiled_. "Clever little Pit-spawn," he said to a Seeker who couldn't hear him.

He separated the three, replaced one timer with its two-hour counterpart, set them both, and put Starscream on the couch to enjoy the rest of his night. He gave the two fliers a dose (two for Skyfire) of the same stuff he had injected the twins with: a sedative, which slowed the processing loop and gave them a chance to recover consciousness. While he was at it, he took energon samples from all three of them, and chemically neutralized Silverbolt's gestalt bond.

Rule still in place: be prepared for any Pit-spawned thing when dealing with Starscream.

Skyfire blinked his optics first. "What … what happened? Silverbolt?"

"He'll be fine when he wakes up. What do you remember?" Ratchet said, looking at the last of his samples, this one Silverbolt's.

"Starscream slept most of the day, and then when we hooked him up with us, and set the timers, he somehow took control of the process." Skyfire blushed. "I've never been overcharged like that in my entire _life_. I remember hearing Silverbolt scream, and then suddenly all three of us were bonded to one another. I mean, _bonded_ bonded. Silverbolt and I were in one another's minds, both with and without Starscream." The shuttle looked down again, and flushed. "And I was with Silverbolt's brothers, too, in the gestalt bond. Then I passed out. When the timers went off the next time, Starscream took over again, and he rode both of us right into the ground. I screamed and passed out after I heard Silverbolt scream again."

Prowl's mouth twitched. Ratchet, himself having a rough time maintaining a straight face, said, "I suggest, once the mating flight's over, that you get together with the twins and have yourselves a Starscream party. Pass that mech around like a dish of candy. Don't quit until you've all had enough of him, and he's had more than enough of you. That'll teach him not to do that again. It's about the only thing that will."

Silverbolt chose this moment to wake. "Skyfire – my brothers -"

"I'm here. I'm fine."

"Your brothers will be fine too," Ratchet said, flicking the lights into and out of Silverbolt's optics. Not liking what he saw, he gave the Air Commander another injection. "I'm going to check on them now. Skyfire, you can fill Silverbolt in on what I told you, can't you?"

"Sure," said the shuttle.

"And no more 'facing with that one tonight, please," Ratchet said, jerking a thumb at Starscream. "I'm an elderly mech, and I need my beauty sleep. I've made sure he's entertaining himself."

Rule still in place: never, ever trust Starscream.

* * *

"I need to stop at the med bay, and pick up some more tranks," Ratchet told Prowl. "Aren't you glad it's not you who will be filling out the drug-usage report on this one?"

"I wish that we had to turn a report in for Optimus, actually," the tactician said, with his formidably straight face.

"And why is that?"

"Because I'd like to be there when he read it. Ten bottles of the twins' best says he couldn't get through it without laughing."

"Oh, no bet, no bet at all."

* * *

Fireflight didn't need the drug. He roused when Ratchet opened the door.

The other three had dropped like flies all over their quarters, as none of them seemed to have been in recharge at the time. Air Raid had been playing a video game, Skydive drooped over a book of military strategy, and Slingshot, shaken where he lay curled up empty-handed on the floor, snorted himself awake.

"What the frag?" he said, focusing bleary optics on the medic. "What are you doing here?"

"Silverbolt asked me to check up on you kids," Ratchet said, taking a sample from Slingshot before the little jerk had any time to protest. "Seems like he was right to do so."

There was a moment of silence, and then a communal wail. "I can't find him! He's not there!" said Fireflight, coming to lean against Ratchet. "What have you done to him?"

"I neutralized his gestalt bond for a couple of hours, that's all," Ratchet said soothingly, reaching up to stroke Fireflight's helm as he would a sparkling's. "He needs to rest. He isn't even hurt, he just got shaken up a bit, and he needs to rest. You'll be able to hear him again shortly, but right now, he needs to rest. And I'll send him in to see you tomorrow, all right?"

Fireflight sobbed. The other three surrounded him, for comfort, and Ratchet thought that one way and another, Slingshot's sample would have to do for now.

"Don't leave us!" Fireflight said, panic in his voice and his optics wide, as Ratchet opened the door.

It was Prowl who turned back, though, saying to Ratchet, "You go. I'll get Jazz. They'll be fine, with two of us here."

Rule rewritten: Prowl is a cold mech at heart.


	6. Chapter 6

Starscream was exiled to the couch, the fragger, and the two new bondmates and trinemates stared at one another across Skyfire's table, holding cups of energon in their hands.

It was a bit early for breakfast, but it had been a very busy night.

Suddenly, Skyfire held his hand out, palm-up, across the table. "Give me your hand," he said to Silverbolt.

Silverbolt's face panels colored a bit, but he laid his large hand in Skyfire's larger one.

There they sat, holding hands with one another. Silverbolt was about to say, "And what now?" when it hit him: Skyfire's deep and sweet regard for him. And there was no flavor of either Starscream, or his brothers, in that bond.

He took a deep breath, and opened himself the rest of the way, sent his feelings for Skyfire back across the bond.

"There now, that wasn't so hard, was it?"

"No. Not once I got the hang of it."

"That little fragger."

"He did this to us?"

"Deliberately. He knew that with both of us linked in, and he certainly didn't waste any time over _that_, he could force a bond between the two of us. It's not something we need to do anything about until you feel ready for it. That little fragger! He's always had a pretty nasty sense of humor, but I didn't know it was this – pointed."

"I … kind of like the outcome," Silverbolt, a shy mech when it came right down to it, said.

"Oh? Good. Because," said Skyfire, whose life experience had included a couple of things undertaken strictly for scientific curiosity which he was pretty sure Silverbolt had never heard of, "there are quite a few things bondmates can do with one another that don't include 'facing. 'Cause that," he said, jerking his head at Starscream, "would bring that one into the picture."

Silverbolt smiled.

Rule rewritten: Starscream does not have to be included in _all_ the fun.

* * *

The bonds established, Skyfire commed Sunstreaker, and invited the twins to a Starscream party.

The twins accepted, and brought some of the their very best highgrade as a host gift.

A very good time was had by all. Repeatedly. Even the ones who weren't actually there at the time, so to speak.

Starscream wore his bondmates out.

Rule rewritten: Sometimes, Ratchet is wrong.

* * *

Skyfire wrapped Starscream in the "fabric thingy" he kept on the back of his couch: three hundred fifty-seven square yards of fine steel mesh, anodized to a pleasing golden tan color. He threw the resultant sausage over one shoulder, and said, "You ready?" to Silverbolt.

"Yeah."

"Ratchet was serious, you know. We have to go in for the pre-flight."

"I know. I just don't like the medical stuff."

"It won't take long. Wiggle this, waggle that, breathe deeply, and it's over."

"I know. I just don't like the medical stuff."

Across the bond came, _And you're afraid of heights._

_And I'm afraid of heights. And now we have to take a mating flight. With a Seeker._

They entered the med bay, as reassurance from two directions flooded the bond.

Ratchet was doing what he defined as "work" - making sure his supplies were up to date. (Seeing patients was not "work." Seeing patients was the joy of his spark. How often did he say, upon completion of somebody's repairs, "Now get out of my medbay. I have to go back to work"?) He raised his helm from the computer when the three of them approached him, and smiled. "No returns without the original receipt, mechs."

Skyfire grinned. Silverbolt's wary expression didn't change as the shuttle said, "We didn't break him. He broke all five of us."

Ratchet's face lit up with amusement. "So the Starscream party wasn't a success? Put him down over there, in that little room. Pretty gift-wrapping."

"Thanks. I want it back."

Ratchet neatly folded fifty-gauge steel mesh into sixteenths, and handed the package back to Skyfire. "It'll take me a while to get him ready to fly again."

"I had an idea about that," Skyfire said.

"Oh?"

Skyfire faced Silverbolt. "I want to take you both flying. I've enough cargo space, if you're in root-mode."

Ratchet said, "I'll have to fit you with sensor jammers, but that won't take long. And this way, it's only you who will need the pre-flight. Let me make a few adjustments to the prima donna, here, and I'll get right on that."

He didn't miss the relief that sagged Silverbolt's wings.

* * *

Starscream had been given his voice, audio,and visual back. He was left physically incapacitated, although Ratchet had been willing to do that too.

"It's a matter of trust," Skyfire told the (probably former) Decepticon. "Given what you did to us, I don't have any in you."

"Yeah, neener neener, I got you first," said the Decepticon.

He had remained exactly Starscreamlike when carried, still wrapped, by Silverbolt into Skyfire's cargo hold.

"Oooh, you're all _strong_ and everything," Starscream said, as Silverbolt decanted him into the co-pilot's seat - still limp, he poured nicely - and edged the fabric thingy down around his shoulders, so that he could see.

"Shut up," said the young Autobot. "You and I might be bonded to the Pit and back, but I'm a _long_ way from forgiving you for what you did to us the other night."

Clenching his denta, he wondered if he meant "me and my brothers" or "me and Skyfire" by that "us"? He didn't know, and he was not the kind of mech who sat down and figured it out, with both hands and a calculator if necessary. Besides, it could be both. Fraggit.

"Oh dearie me, I am _so_ frightened."

Silverbolt didn't reply, merely adjusted the seat webbing so that it supported, and did not choke, his trine mate. He wanted to leave it across Starscream's throat, and listen as he rasped for breath while Skyfire dove from a twenty-eight mile altitude … but he didn't. To the Pit with being a responsible Autobot, and he _still_ couldn't do that. Frag it all. He threw himself with a huff into the pilot's seat, and felt both of his trine mates envelop him in caring.

He didn't want to throw the little fragger out of the bond, even if he could.

_Yeah, and I thought I was screwed,_ Starscream sent cheerfully.

The resulting _Shut _up_!_ was directed at Starscream in stereo. The recipient giggled.

They climbed through cloud cover to find the sun, but Skyfire did not stop or slow his ascent. Sixty miles, eighty, a hundred and twenty … and the planet below became a curve of horizon, and not the backdrop of their adventure.

Skyfire said, as calmly as was his wont, "This is _my_ mating flight, mechs."

Gravity loosened its grip on them. Not totally; Skyfire had gone beyond gravity's end a time or two with others, and knew it could result in an abrupt bout of spacesickness. That was not what he wanted on his honeymoon.

He got far enough away from the planet to stay stable for a joor or two, before orbital decay asserted itself, and cut his engines. They sped along Earth's orbit in silence.

Few scientists are immune to the wonders of creation, and Starscream was struck mute at the beauty unfolding before him.

Skyfire had seen it before, a time or sixty, and Silverbolt, who wasn't a scientist, lost interest after the initial five minutes of awe. Shielding their bond, Skyfire sent instructions to Silverbolt, and he collected the necessary cable extenders.

Starscream was still staring out the windshield when Silverbolt reached over and clipped him into circuit with his trinemates.

The party with Sides and Sunny hadn't been a success. This one was; the other members of Starscream's trine, having taken him by surprise, rode him like a pony.

A hot, sweaty, exhausted, _vocal_ pony, who finally offlined in sheer perverse self-defense.

Rule: "Starscream is always in control" successfully rewritten.

"That," said Silverbolt, unclipping things after he got his own breath back and could stand up again, "will teach _him_."

"It probably wasn't anything he didn't know already," Skyfire said. He still had to get them home somehow, not dump them nose-first into the landing strip, and his landing gear was awfully wobbly … he'd orbit a bit longer, then go back …

"Still, it's good to know we're not entirely at his mercy. I was a little worried about that."

"You mean, since that quality is entirely lacking in his character? Good point. We may have something here. Just put something in his energon, take him into orbit, and 'face him sideways whenever he gets uppity with us."

"Fine by me," Silverbolt said. "You?"

"When he gets uppity, we'll do it."

"You okay?"

"If by 'okay' you mean can I get us home safely, absolutely, after a couple more orbits. If by 'okay' you mean do I want to do that again in twenty minutes, not by a long shot."


	7. Chapter 7

Starscream onlined in the med bay, aching in some peculiar places.

"You played rough with the wrong mech," Ratchet informed him cheerfully.

"Do you count yourself as one of them?" the Seeker groaned, rolling to one side.

"You stay down on that berth. Yes, I do."

"What have you done to me this time? I feel like slag."

"Thank your trine-mates for that. They took you for quite a ride. It's something I'd keep in mind, if I were you, because I've given them the ability to do that every time you get uppity. Their word."

"_Uppity_? Is that some kind of human slang?"

"Yes. Look it up on the internet when you can sit at a computer. For right now, you'll be out of my med bay in a couple of days, so I've disconnected all your comms but the short-range available inside the base; your weapons are still in storage. The ache in your left wing -" Starscream, not aware of it until then, winced - "is a particularly nasty flight-limitation device I thought up all by myself, and had Wheeljack make for me."

"But his inventions always -"

"Yes, they do. That'll be inconvenient at a hundred miles of altitude, won't it? That's your limitation, Starscream - a hundred miles in any direction including up, and then the device starts burning a hole in your wing. The farther you get outside the limit, the faster it burns."

Starscream scowled. "And you call yourself a medic."

"I call myself an Autobot first. Bonded to us you might be, and I for one don't envy your bondmates, but you have a way to go to prove yourself. We don't, let's say, suspect you of loyalty."

Starscream, until then propped on his elbows (even a small defiance is better than none), lay back on the berth with a huff through his exhaust. "Was the bonding idea yours?"

"All of it."

"How did you convince my bondmates to go through with it?"

"I told the twins that Seekers have a talent for intense overcharge experiences."

"It's more than a talent."

"Yes, I know, neural networks and the dilution of impact, yadda yadda. I didn't tell them that. I just told them that you would be difficult to overcharge, but worth it when they accomplished it, gave them the tools, and let their deviousness take it from there."

"And the other two?"

"Appealed to their better sides. They have one; they're Autobots."

"My former trinemates?"

That was the moment in which Ratchet began to have some hope that he had not done four Autobots a grave disservice. "Swindle arranged a meeting, and I neutralized the bond chemically, as I did for you."

"Good." Starscream closed his eyes. "They don't deserve to die because I got myself shot down."

"How'd that happen, anyway?"

"Fragging Sunny got off a lucky shot when I was trying to chase down Sides. I missed him once, had him in my sights for the second, then Sunny got me."

"That make it hard to bond to him when the time came?"

Starscream opened the red eyes. "You've never been bonded, have you."

"I tell people I'm bonded to my work."

Starscream snorted. "I'm bonded to mine, and believe me, neither the trine bond, which is kind of lightweight compared to what you and your little buddies put me through, nor any passion you feel for your work, is _anything_ to compare to the mate-bond. When it arrives, it's more like an avalanche than anything else. It takes you where it wants you to go, and you don't have any say in the matter. I would kill for any of them. I would have for Thundercracker and Skywarp. ―If it weren't to protect your patients, or yourself, would you kill?"

"I have in the past, and I will in the future. I want this Pit-spawned war over." Ratchet paused. "Are you trying to tell me you're mate-bonded to the fliers, as well?"

"They weren't mated to each other, and they wanted to be." Starscream smirked. "I got them through that, after the Seeker trine was established, and then, even though I could tell they weren't really Seekers, well, the bonding process took over."

"So _you're_ bonded to them, _they_ aren't bonded to you."

"They aren't Seekers. No sustainable bond could be forged; I think, though, that the bond we all share is much the same as the one I share with the twins."

"Screwed you pretty good." Ratchet gave the former Decepticon an entirely-too-pleased grin.

"Right to the wall." Starscream exhaled. "I can't go back, even if I wanted to. I don't; it's just …" He trailed off, and lay silent.

"Don't want your options limited?"

"Don't put words in my mouth. If I were to get all mushy and sentimental, I'd say I'd rather it had been my choice to come here."

"Might prove to be yet." Ratchet was watching his patient's monitors carefully. "I'm going to get you a cup of energon. After you drink it you should sleep some more. You've got a mating flight to prepare for."

"Ah, Ratchet. You take such good care of me."

The tone was snarky, but Ratchet chose to answer him seriously. "Of course I do. If you aren't an Autobot now, you're the bondmate of four of them. Their welfare's important to me. By extension, yours is too."

"But only by extension."

"Concern for your own welfare is something you'll have to earn from me, Starscream." The medic stood. "Now, since I have other patients, I'm going to get you your energon."

Rule unchanged: do not prod Ratchet.

* * *

Starscream, fueled and alone, did some thinking.

A week ago by his own chronometer, he'd been shot down. At that point, he had never questioned either his loyalty to the Decepticons, nor his drive to supplant Megatron.

He had also not questioned his environment. Starscream was not acquainted with any Earth biota, or he might have thought "I was like a fish swimming in poisoned waters."

Here, the waters were not poisoned. In a week, in only a week, the consistent concern, to use Ratchet's word, for him had caused him to leave behind most of the nastiness that once characterized him. Not merely leave it behind, but shed it like an outworn coat.

He hadn't lost his sense of humor, which tended to be pointed at the best of times. But if he had it to do over, he wouldn't have proceeded as he did with Skyfire and Silverbolt.

Perhaps he should tell them that. They weren't Seekers, but they were his bondmates: like Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, who could absorb his more erratic tendencies and laugh at him for them. The other two, however, were of tenderer stuff.

And there were Silverbolt's gestalt brothers to meet and somehow get along with, too.

All in all, it was much less complicated than being a Decepticon.

Starscream reached out through his bonds, was cherished, cherished in return (which surprised the recipients quite a lot), offlined his optics, and slept.

* * *

"You_ what_ ?" said Optimus Prime to Ratchet.

"I arranged to force-bond Starscream to two sets of Autobots. He's ours now. He knows that."

"Primus. What have you done?"

"I just said."

Optimus put his head into his hands. "I thought I knew you. Ten days in the brig. When you get out, we'll have a little chat about this."

Ten days in the brig? A small price, Ratchet thought, pacing the halls with Ironhide's hand quite firmly around his arm, to pay for Starscream. Even the promised chat, which he knew would more closely resemble a lecture, was no deterrent.

Yes. Sometimes it was entirely worth it to rewrite the rules.


End file.
